Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1998

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Faraci, Mary

Abstract

Beowulf has inspired readers and listeners since the eighth century, first as a performance then as a written poem. It is an epic tale of Anglo-Saxon warriors, life, and history. Recently, studies of Beowulf have introduced questions of twentieth-century gender stereotypes that provide a new understanding of the epic's characters and themes. However, these studies have delivered too simple a reading of complex characters like Grendel's mother and have led scholarship away from the poem. To bring critics back to the poem, this study attempts to make the poem a landscape. When the total landscape, the language, style, alliteration, and violence (physical and emotional), is studied, the poem is opened up to more than just simple readings. In a landscape reading, Grendel's mother becomes a force strong enough to disrupt the structure of the language and to battle the barriers between female and male, warrior and monster, and pagan and nonpagan. A landscape that is as violent as the characters is discovered, one in which all life is celebrated.

Extent

49 p.

Comments

FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1998.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Identifier

FADT15542

Format

pdf

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